Alfawise Z28 Pro Android 7.1 Rockchip RK3328 4K TV Box Review

Alfawise Z28 Pro Android 7.1 4K TV Box Review

The Z28 Pro is the upgraded version of the Z28, and has made lots of changes from its previous version, and has compensated for all the hiccups from its predecessor. In this review I will highlight all these improvements, as well as run some benchmarks to see how it scores.

The Z28 Hardware

The Z28 Pro runs on the new Rockchip line of TV boxes, it sports the Rockchip RK3328 quad core CPU with a maximum clock speed of 1.5GHz. There has been some critics about the performance of the RK3328 in comparison to the Amlogic S912. However, more and more manufacturers have been using this new line of Rockchip CPUs which is an indication of manufactures trust and compatibility with latest versions of Android.

Product Listing

Amazon 4GB/32GB

Its 3D graphics and display is powered by ARM Mali 450MP GPU, which I believe is a single core GPU, because it does not have a number after the “MP” which indicates the number of cores the GPU has.

It comes in three versions, 1GB/8GB, 2GB/8GB, and the 2GB/16GB models. However, my advice is to purchase the 2GB/16GB for the simple reason of more RAM means better performance.

The Z28 Pro is programmed with the latest Android 7.1.2 Nougat. However, Alfawise has updated their firmware on this box granting root access and full access to the Google Play Store. After the update you get a collection of movie streaming, social media, and system apps at your disposal.

All my 4K video samples played without any problems, however, when played using the Kodi media it had lots of problems. A word of advise is that use a fast external hard drive and the USB 3.0 port for playing from external devices. For perfect playback load onto internal storage and use the media player that comes with Android installation.

Gaming

The Z28 Pro is not a big gamer, however, it can play Android games just not the very large ones.

Conclusion

The Z28 Pro is a good TV box for streaming movies and TV shows on Kodi and from the many sources of APK out there in TV land. Don’t expect this to be a big gamer but it will play many android games. It’s rooted, but only after the firmware update. They forgot to include a navigation bar at the bottom which they will add in a later update.